Dear Yogis,

I was so excited I couldn’t wait to share this with you….

It is a beautiful day, and I thought I may go out in the garden this afternoon, if I have done all the writing I need to do.  I am getting the garden ready for my new bee colony arriving in spring, even getting bee friendly plants growing so that they will feel at home and loved.

A friend gave me a bee book (by Bee Wilson), and although I was reluctant to have another book to read (they are piling up whilst I am stuck on Beatrix Potter), imagine my surprise and delight on flipping through and discovering a paragraph on “honeydew” (honey from heaven).  

Last summer I told you about the connection I had made between the sugar exuded from aphids on certain trees in the garden and a wasp invasion.    I had discovered this “rain of sugar”  whilst sitting meditating under the tree with the wasps. The wasps were so busy with their collection, they couldn’t be bothered with me sitting in their space, and I enjoyed observing their behaviour around this particular tree.  I couldn’t find any literature on this phenomenon, and no-one I spoke to had an inkling about it.  I knew I couldn’t be the first to observe it, but I didn’t know what they were enjoying had been discovered and was known historically “honey-dew”.

In 1634 a Mr Charles Butler wrote about it  and called it “the sweetest nectar which God doth distill miraculously out of the air”  He noticed it occurring on oak trees, I haven’t seen it on oak trees, but I certainly pay attention now.  Once I had got the right word for the miracle called honeydew, I could research and found  it was also noticed by Galen in AD129.  He said that the people of MtLibanus would spread animal skins on the ground to collect this “air honey” as it fell off the trees.

When I first discovered it last summer and followed the trail I realised it was being produced by grey black aphids being “farmed” by ants on certain trees around the pond.  The aphids produced a honey tasting substance which fell like fine rain drops on me as I sat under the tree.  It was this that attracted wasps to the garden.  But the ants and aphis are determined to collect this sugar, and I have to brush the trees down daily to keep the aphid population down, and the wasps away. Butler and Galen were  being very biblical in their musings, but it is actually a whole lot less appealing.  It is actually aphid poo.  

Apparently there are people who consider it a delicacy and it can be purchased at great expense at gourmet honey retailers.  They market it as “heavenly sweat” as I presume “heavenly poo” would be a whole lot less appealing.  Once you know what it is it really does taste like what it is.  Yes, it is sweet, it is also “woody” or you could call this taste “poo’ey” and there is some doubt about whether it is really fit for human consumption.  In my garden, the rain is not heavy enough that I could be bothered to lay out skins to collect it which is probably good  because I would, but I have honey, so aphid poo is not a sugar source I rely on..

Take advantage of COVID.  When you slow down, take time in the garden, and really pay attention to what is happening around you, it is amazing what you can discover.  Go sit in your garden (rug up, it is cold out there).  

Have a gorgeous day.

NAMASTE  JAHNE

Dear Yogis,

“I have made a vow to attain Enlightenment in the female form – no matter how many lifetimes it takes”     – Tenzin Palmo

We understand that yoga is like a cave, but during our time in COVID isolation we have had the opportunity to take this a step further – our house could have been (or could be) like “a cave”.

Have any of you read “A Cave in the Snow”?  The life story (thus far) of the Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo who spent twelve years meditating in a tiny cave over 13,000 feet up in the Himalayas.  I am sure that if you had self isolated in this extreme way, cut off from the distractions of ordinary life, all the demons lying beneath the surface would begin to rise up and taunt you.  The anger, the paranoia, the lust (especially the lust).  They all have to be overcome if like her, we wish to take another step towards enlightenment.

Certainly there have been many Saints and women mystics in all parts of the world, but taking that extra step into enlightenment has been the domain of the male.  The female body has been seen as unfit, or unworthy.

Tenzin Palmo’s thirst for knowledge and that “extra step”,  had pushed her way beyond where you or I would ever venture.  I am sure like me, you have examined your reactions to this time locked away for COVID safety, even though it was as nothing compared to her isolation and the dangers she faced if not from thieves, or animals, then from ice and snow… and of course the climate in the Himalayas – remember she was born in England.

Imagine that EVERY DAY you sat on the same cushion in the same place for hours at a time, saying the same mantras, the same prayers, and moving into the same meditations.  Every day the same as the one before. Ultimately it is a test of endurance and courage.  I know how hard most of you work at spending more than half an hour on a cushion – now imagine 12 years….

Tenzin Palmo knew that the purpose of life is to realise our spiritual nature.  And to do that we have to go away and practise, otherwise we have nothing to give to others.

The lives we live in the West for the most part are an escape.  This has been made abundantly clear during Covid.  Even in our self imposed isolation, we can turn on the TV, phone a friend, go out for a walk for an hour, even shop.  If you were in a cave such as the one Tenzin Palmo inhabited (6ftx6ft), a cave where there was no room to lie down (sleeping happened sitting up in a box which looked like a cupboard drawer), and when problems in meditation or life arose,  like her you would have had no choice but to go through them and come out the other side.  No supermarket, no shopping.  If you didn’t eke out a living from the ground around the cave in all weathers (or hopefully be remembered by villagers), then like her you starved.   She faced her own nature, nothing hidden, no way of running away (except perhaps into madness).

The life of Tenzin Palmo shows us that the impossible is possible.  That it is possible if not in this lifetime then in the next that there could arise a female Buddha.  Tenzin Palmo believes that she was born a woman to have these experiences and inspire other women.  There is still a long way to go.

Instead of chafing at the bit to get back to “normal”, use this time wisely to move your yoga, your meditation, and your life towards a more “Godly” pace.  In this way, everyone will win.

KEEP WELL,KEEP WARM, (and enjoy the sunshine)

NAMASTE – JAHNE

 

Dear Yogis,

What a wonderful week.  Not because we are ALL going back to something called NORMAL, but because we know we have a choice.  

Do you want NORMAL?  I have run away from it since I was a child and realised it was about mindlessly fitting in, which is where the word originated.  A “normal” was the Norman implement we now know as a set square, and it made possible great buildings, because the bricklayers could be sure that everyone was travelling in the same direction and laying bricks that aligned.  Without this implement straight lines of bricks were almost impossible.  Do you want to be “a brick in the wall?”.

I like small classes, small gatherings, being able to cross the road, people saying hello, drivers who are on the road driving and parking well because there is plenty of room, and lots of room on trains. I could go on.  Then there are many more people cooking and eating at home (beef sales are up with butchers having more customers not less).  So there are some downsides to the virus, but there is also the upside.  When the schools go back, and mums and dads can get back to work (changed conditions?) we should be able to choose change for the better.  It is not all bad.

Apart from no classes and no consults, my life is still as productive as ever.  I am still painting, doing my cards and paintings large and small.  Beatrix Potter is one of my inspirations.  A mentor?

Here is Miss Jemima Puddleduck I painted for one of my lovely students.   I don’t often delve into my childhood images, but Beatrix Potter’s tales certainly lend themselves to this.

They were beloved books, and Beatrix herself was a fascinating person.  A genius.  Most people just think of the “Bunny Books” when they think of Ms.Potter, but in actual fact these were a smokescreen to the scientific work she did in fungi and bacteria.  Her Bunny books were so beautiful because she kept rabbits (and many animals in lieu of friends), observed them, drew them endlessly, and when they died a natural death, she drew them in death, and then the skins and skeletons.  She loved them.

Pasteur corresponded with her as an equal scientifically, and developed his work using her theories.  If she had been a man (or lived in France perhaps) we would have heard much more about her, as we have about Marie Curie for instance.  Beatrix couldn’t have done more, but people would have paid attention instead of dismissing her efforts.

In spite of her constricted Victorian upbringing (she lived most of her life in a world of covid like restrictions), she was able to do an enormous body of work that you will only learn about if you know more about her.  Her scientific drawings of fungi are still in English museums, her work is treasured by these institutions.  She was the first to identify and illustrate some fungi but her name was never added to their scientific name as is usually the case.  Why? Mainly because she was a woman.  The only way she was admitted to the Royal Society and The  Linnaeus Society  was because her uncle who was himself a member of these organisations lobbied on her behalf.  However, it made no difference to her status.  She was still seen as a wealthy, “dabbler’, and not to be seriously considered in science.  However, if she had been a man and allowed to exercise her scientific muscle, we may never have seen all her wonderful children’s stories…..  and I believe the world would have been a lesser place.

She didn’t have children, and was trotted all over London to be introduced to society in the hope that she would meet a man and do her duty. This caused a lot of conflict within her and led to a number of nervous breakdowns and illness.  She did marry much later in life and on her own terms.  However, within these restrictions (and without any of the modern computers etc, using only papers,  pen and brush)  she wrote a number of books a year, and drew sometimes upwards of 60 fungi illustrations from life per year.  She had to go out, find the fungi, dissect etc etc. all in (quiet) defiance of her parents and within the restrictions of her age and class.  Restrictions which you may have considered “imprisonment”.

If she can do this, what are you doing?  How are you contributing to your world during this ongoing Covid restriction, or are you caught up in the “I CANT’S”?  In spite of everything, Beatrix lived, loved, laughed and left a legacy. 

Have a fabulous PRODUCTIVE day.

Namaste – Jahne